“And you were able to go into town and just buy them from a gambling hall?” the smith asked, as his servant arrived with a bag of foods.
“I won a lot of money playing their games, and it was cheaper for them to give me the slaves than my winnings,” Kestrel simplified what had happened. “We’ll just take the bag and be on our way, if you don’t mind,” Kestrel told the smith.
He didn’t distrust the human, but he had no feeling that he could completely trust him either, and he needed to start the journey back, knowing that it would be slowed down by the weakened and crippled condition of his new acquaintances.
“Go right ahead; for what you’ve paid today, you can keep the sack,” the smith grinned. “Here’s your own staff back too,” he pulled it off a table top and tossed it to Kestrel.
“Can you bring our horse out from the stable?” Kestrel asked the boy, who immediately ran to do so.
“He’s obedient; you need to keep him around,” Kestrel grinned at the smith.
“He’s my own son; he listens better than I did at that age,” the man agreed.
Kestrel switched languages, as he spoke to the two elves whose heads had turned back and forth, following the conversation. “We’re going to start back home now. I have a horse, and I want you two to ride it today, and maybe for a few days,” he instructed them. “I know you don’t like the idea, but I want to get away from here as fast as we can, just to be safe, and the horse will help speed our departure.”
They looked at him, then looked at each other. “We understand. We don’t like it, I’m sure you know, but we’ll do it,” one of the two answered.
They walked out into the yard, where Kestrel helped both men climb atop the saddle, and he instructed them to hold on.
“I’ve got one question,” the smith said as they readied to leave. “Are you human or elf? I know I shouldn’t have to ask, but you almost seem like one of them somehow.”
“I am human,” Kestrel said, then turned away and started the horse in motion with him. “And elf too,” he added softly as they left the yard.
He led the horse to walk at his pace for several minutes until they were safely away from the blacksmith shop and moving out towards the farms along the road. “Hold on tight,” he spoke up to the elves, “we’re going to pick up the pace.” He broke from his walk into a full Elven running stride, and the horse immediately began to move at a brisk trot beside him, as the riders exclaimed and grabbed on tightly to the saddle and each other.
For the rest of the day, until sunset was nearly complete, they continued to pass rapidly away from Green Water, passing along the shore of the North Sea, and finally turning inland to settle in for the night in a camping spot.
“Let’s stop here,” Kestrel said at last, breathing hard as he reined the horse to a stop beside him. “You can climb down. You’ll be sore,” Kestrel advised as he helped the former slaves off the horse.
“Here,” he tossed them the water skin. “Both of you take a drink from this, but not a lot. It comes from a special spring, and if we give you some each day for the next few days, plus feed you some food, you’ll be nothing but better.”
“Master, who are you?” the taller of the two elves asked.
“I am an elf, made to look like a human,” he replied. “I’ll tell you more after I tend to the horse and we set up camp. If you can gather some wood, we’ll start a small fire.”
They went about their tasks, and several minutes later they sat down together in the darkness, illuminated only by the small fire and the stars overhead, unaware that the guards from the gambling hall had visited the blacksmith with a band of supporters, seeking information about the whereabouts of Kestrel and the elves, intending to take the slaves back and to slay Kestrel for his humiliation of the manager.
“Who are you?” Termine, the taller of the two asked.
Kestrel talked about himself in a limited way, hiding much, but revealing enough to provide a plausible tale for the two former slaves to understand how he had come to be in Green Water. “And then the goddess blessed the cubes I tossed, so that I won every time, and soon the gamblers owed me more than they could pay, so I took you two as payment, and here we are,” he concluded.
“Now, tell me your story, how you came to be slaves, and how you came to be in Green Water,” Kestrel asked. “I guess you were caught in the battle at the fire?”
“We were,” Hinger, the other elf confirmed, as they took turns eating and talking. “Our squad watched Commander Mastrin took a group out to try to break up the firethrowers, and we and the others were instructed to try to run south and get around the end of the fires, so we could take shelter in the safe part of the forest.
“Mastrin’s forces went down too quickly though; the humans just waited for them and butchered them, and we weren’t able to make it to safety,” he continued. “The humans came at us, and we put up a fight, but not many survived.”
“They rounded up the survivors, tied us all in ropes, and herded us together,” Hinger added.
“Was there a girl named Lucretia?” Kestrel asked with a lump in his throat.
“There were four or five score captured altogether,” Hinger continued. “I didn’t know many of them; I barely knew Termine. There were a few females, but they were separated from us pretty quickly.”
“Then after the first day, they didn’t attack any further. They could have burned the whole Eastern Forest — there weren’t any other defenders left, but instead they packed everything up and left the battlefield, taking us with them,” he explained. “It was a horrible march. They didn’t feed us much, they beat us just because they could, they left our dead lying by the side of the road — a lot didn’t survive. Maybe two score or three score made it to their city.
“Then things happened to us and to them. They fought among themselves; a lot of them were killed, and they attacked the city. Then they took an ax and cut off our feet, so we couldn’t run away, I guess,” he stopped talking, emotion overcoming him, and Termine picked up the story.
“We were put on a ship after the humans’ war with themselves was done, those that survived, that is, and we went across the sea to another great city, and we were sold off at auction. Hinger and I were bought together by a trader, and we worked on his ships, getting whipped and mistreated terribly,” he said. “The trader came up here on a voyage and must have lost money at the gambling house, because we were given to the house, and have worked there the past week.”
Kestrel felt the tears rolling down his cheeks at the bleak recital of the horrific events.
“All praise to Kai for sending you to save us,” Hinger said. “I’ll make an extra devotion and pledge to the temple to thank her.”
“As will I,” Termine agreed.
“As will I,” Kestrel concurred.
“Since there are three of us, we’ll take turns on watch,” Kestrel announced. “I’ll take the first shift, then wake Hinger for second, and Termine can take the third,” he directed.
The two ex-slaves fell immediately asleep, while Kestrel walked around the perimeter of the campsite, and came back to add new tinder to the fire from time to time. It was that fire that gave their location away to the gambler’s men who were still following them, and Kestrel’s watchfulness that saved them.
Near the end of his shift Kestrel heard the men approaching, and woke the other two elves. He gave them his bow and arrows to use, while he went out into the darkness of the trees, and waited for the men to pass by him. There were eight men, walking in a cluster towards the flames of the camp fire, and when Kestrel was sure they were within the range of the elven archers who were hidden in the darkness, he began his attack. He swung his staff with full force at the back of the head of one man, then jabbed and twisted the newly spiked end of the staff into the throat of the man next to him.
He heard the twinge of his bow, and one of the humans screamed, while the others realized they had been ambushed, and began to shout and flail. One of the men swung his sword blindly, but managed to score it across Kestrel’s stomach, a painful cut that he ignored as he twisted his staff between the man’s legs to trip him, then ripped the hooks across his opponent’s throat, and heard a gurgling noise as another arrow found its target.